Back To The Future

Now that we are firmly into 2015, I feel I must once again ask that all-important question that has been rattling at the edge of my consciousness since my childhood.

Where the heck are all the flying cars?

I mean, seriously. When I was a kid, my teacher in Grade 2 said, and I quote, ‘By the time you have reached your late thirties, you will be able to go pretty much anywhere in your very own flying car!’ I’m now going on 50, and I’m sorry, but I am still driving on four rubber tires firmly attached to the ground. This does not include the times my wife is driving, and we go flying over bumps and are momentarily airborne.

Is it really too much to ask? We can play music on plastic discs using lasers, or better yet, use our phones to hold thousands of songs. I didn’t see that coming. I can watch TV shows on a television that is 2 inches thick, with a clarity that defies logic. Who knew that would happen? I am typing this article on a laptop computer, which contains roughly 10 gazillion times the memory that the computers of NORAD had in 1971, wirelessly, no-less, while listening to music and checking my Facebook…totally shocking from the perspective of my Grade 2 -self. And yet my truck does not fly.

Pardon me for being bitter. The Americans spent trillions of dollars sending people into space, and they even landed on the moon (apparently). They built a space station. They sent up a telescope that essentially can see billions of years into our past. Heck, they even invented Tang!!! These are all marvelous achievements, to be sure. But we cannot convey a Ford F-150 a few dozen feet in the air safely, to hover wonderfully free of gravity, to allow a young man (*cough*) like myself a little freedom, to realize a dream.

Come to think of it, this teacher also promised me that male pattern baldness would be a thing of the past. Sadly, this is not true!! Unless I missed an important meeting, this is still happening to me!! (Thanks to Google, I’ve learnt that this is called being ‘pilgarlic’) I’m starting to think this teacher was lying. If I could remember her name, I’d tell her a thing or two. I’d do it wearing a hat to hide my pilgarlic self, but by golly, I’d tell her!!

I know I’m being silly, and there have been some really stunning advances. Lasik surgery. The internet. Smartphones. Netflix. The Slap-Chop. Spanx…..the list goes on and on.

There have also been some not so stunning ones. Ronco and K-Tel led a revolution in the domain of pedestrian inventions. The Pocket Fisherman, Pocket Diaper Steamer, the Pocket Money Holder, the Bathroom Barbeque, and endless array of useless items that we feverishly called in for with our credit cards.

And yet, our cars fly not.

The struggle continues. Perhaps it will happen in 2014. Until then, we Muggles will have to propel ourselves on the ground.